The sun has well and truly risen on a new year, and the powers that be have decreed that 2026 be known as the Year of The Curious Squid. We’re taking that as inspiration to stay curious and think critically in these increasingly interesting times.
Although we’ve one foot planted in the future, we’d like to give the other foot a little dip in past to keep us anchored to simpler times and to balance history with progress, so let’s have a recap of the year gone by, and remind ourselves of the things we’ve produced and purveyed in the name of Discworld . . .
2025 was a veritable short story bonanza! Tales of Wizards and Dragons kicked off the year with its collection of three short stories by the young Terry Pratchett that were first published in the Bucks Free Press when our favourite author’s formative years as a newspaper journalist. A new edition of A Blink of the Screen followed in April with 21 non-Discworld writings and 11 Discworld stories inclduing like “The Sea and the Little Fishes,” “Theatre of Cruelty,” and “Death and What Comes Next.”
In August and October respectively the fantastically funny Tales of Beasts and Bugs and perfectly poignant Shaking Hands With Death arrived. The colourful follow-up to Tales of Wizards and Dragons gave us four tales of animal ant-tics to enjoy, while Terry’s Dimbleby Lecture essay shone in this new-look clothbound edition.
The Good Omens graphic novel, adapted and illustrated by Eisner-winning artist Colleen Doran, came to fruition last year via crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. As an independent retailer, we were able to back the Bookseller tier and were delighted to make the book available for sale in September.
In February we got our books in order with our new metal bookends! Bored of tea towels, we wanted to add something functional and stylish yet still distinctly Discworld to our range of homewares, so opted for four silhouetted characters in metal to kept our books upstanding and in fine fettle!
These were a bit of a departure from our traditionally sculpted shelf decor, but although relatively simplistic in design we still ensured we incorporated enough details to capture each character and for each bookend to be a special part of a Discworld collection.
We are absolutely thrilled with the result, and thanks to you sharing your pictures we can confirm that they look fantastic on the shelf whether used to bolster books or as standalone literary objet’ d’art!
One of our best sellers in 2025 was the Unseen University Acceptance Letter, which gave fans the chance to hone their arcane skills and further their knowledge in the art of magic at Discworld’s (and literature’s) premier college of wizardry. Featuring lots of details that you’d expect from a Discworld Emporium printed artefact from a wax seal to ‘real’ Discworld stamps applied by hand, this arcane artefact struck the balance between affordable gift and finely crafted collectable!
A bridge from last year to this, the Discworld calendar 2026. We were thrilled to be given the task of creating this year’s Discworld Calendar – an annual fixture of Discworld merchandise that we hold dear to our hearts as ardent traditionalists! to render our designs for twelve out-of-this-world vistas of iconic locations
Teaming up with Rich Kingston of Young Rascal Design (who can not only illustrate, but has also sculpted our Great A’Tuin, Luggage and Librarian figurines, the clever sod) to render our designs for twelve travel-poster-style vistas advertising the charms of iconic Discworld locations.
Discworld calendars have a history of guest artists being commissioned to create artwork especially for Discworld calendars, and we wanted to bring that back to the calendars a bit with bespoke artwork and a strong theme that would provide a little fantasy escape from round world with every glance!
October gave us one of our biggest and most successful product launches of all time when our Discworld Reading Blanket burst on the literary merchandising scene, selling out in a matter of hours!
This was probably the most fun product we’ve ever had to road test and photograph, as our prototype blanket was put through its paces throughout the school holidays, accompanying our family to the beach, picnics in the park and garden, evenings around the fire and more.
After small mortals frolicking about on it all summer, often using it as a towel or giant napkin (followed by numerous washes), the fact that it remained in fine enough fettle to model for pictures is sure testament to its quality and durability. It’s now enjoying some R&R in our reading corner when not being purloined for den material!
The Discworld Reading Blanket is expected back in stock very very soon, so be sure to head to the product page and sign up for a restock notification!
In the autumn our family of dinky Discworld figurines got even BIGGER . . because Detritus rocked up (pune intended) with his City Watch cohorts, to join our collection of dinky Discworld figurines along with Cohen the Barbarian and Mad Hamish of the Silver Horde!
Our sculptor Shaun Main does such a fantastic job of bringing our own designs to life, and we had a lot of fun with these sets. We’ve seen a few of Shaun’s’ sculpts of trolls over the teas, and knew he’d do a fantastic job of creating a Denizens Detritus. Obviously it’s tricky to produce a troll in a miniature scale that will fit in with the other pieces in the collection without standing above his station, as it were, on the shelf. Therefore we used a bit of artistic license to make him a touch smaller, and deliberately posed him to be hunched menacingly over his weapon!
Meanwhile our little geriatric barbarians that are full of toothless menace We have a lot of back and forths on these pieces to get them just right, and the more humorous the character, the more fun we have!
Denizens are also a lot of fun to paint at home, and we’ve really been enjoying seeing your efforts to make your Denizens your own. There are a lot of skillful painters out there, so keep the customisations coming folks – we love to see them!
It was a puzzling year to say the least, made more so by our latest Jigsaw Puzzle releases! It Came from Uberwald brought the spook, while the Oblong Office gave a sense of order to the chaos, despite being in 1000 pieces!
Uberwald was one our most-requested subjects for a Discworld Jigsaw puzzle, and together with David Wyatt we had a lot of fun hamming up the horror and bringing the characters of Discworld’s darkest and most mysterious region to life against the spooktacular backdrop of Dontgonearthecastle!
Don’t let him detain you – The Oblong Office puzzle gave the opportunity for a rare glimpse inside the heart of the Patrician’s Palace, with David’s fly on the wall’s view of an encounter between Lord Havelock Vetinari and Sir Samuel Vimes (along with Wuffles and Errol).
The Discworld Icons series brings Terry’s most beloved characters to life with a cohesive collection of ‘grown-up’ figurines with a fine finish and attention to detail. Following on from Death last year, our premium figurine of Granny Weatherwax made her debut in the season of the witch, being released on Halloween.
This piece was designed with utmost respect for the Hag O’ Hags, and she was sculpted with reverence from her hobnailed boots to her bees, so when we first held the finished item in our hands looking as ‘handsome’ as she does, well, we very nearly popped with excitement! Suffice to say we immediately called Shaun to congratulate and thank him for capturing the Granny we’ve held in our heads for so many years.
Trust us when we say that pictures just do not do Granny justice. Capturing our signature bronze finish on camera is always such a challenge, and it’s only seeing these pieces in person that they can truly be appreciated. Thank you to everyone who has contacted us to express their delight with Granny, and who loves her as much as we do!
In December, we added a touch of Discworld to our holiday decor with a new trio of hanging Hogswatch decorations!
David Wyatt is a super versatile artist, so we asked him to create three festive illustrations of Death, Quoth and the Death of rats in a hyper traditional, folkloric style that would strike the right tone for the Hogswatch that we know from the books!
We don’t know how he does it, but David also managed to fit us into his schedule to create a visual celebration of our favourite author and the book series that we love so very much
With Ian having provided a compositional brief detailing all of the fantastic elements from Discworld that we wanted to include in the image, David then rendered, enhanced and embellished to detailed display of books and souvenirs from a reader’s journey through Terry Pratchett’s wonderful world.
The result is the Discworld Bound Art Print, which is our love letter to Discworld.
In 2025 we had Discworld stamps celebratin Music with Rocks in, Unseen University, Discworld philosophers and technomancy along with our annual seven Definitives and Hogswatch issues . . . no bad for a year in which we have had to reduce our Stamp output!
Stamp collectors will be aware that due to a bundle of reasons, not least increased demands on our time and resources and the increased cost of living, we made the decision earlier this year to take the pressure off all of us and release stamps and LBEs when we are able (instead of releases almost every month). We hope this change will enable us to offer quality over quantity with a focus on special releases as well as saving our collectors a not insignificant amount of precious pennies!
That said, we have recently and very sadly lost our lovely team member Lynne who had perforated our stamps and packed all our LBEs for over a decade. It goes without saying that there will inevitably be a further impact on the amount of Discworld stamp offerings we will be able to produce for the time being, and we thank you for your patience and understanding.
On a lighter and more life-affirming note, perhaps the most exciting introduction of 2025 was the arrival of a new Pratchett on the planet as Terry’s daughter Rhianna welcomed baby Samuel Raphael Pratchett! Suffice to say that this was certainly some very welcome and much needed good news to help get us through the madness of the year!
As we hurtle into 2026 then, be assured that we’ve got plenty of Discworld wonder up our sleeves to further lift the spirits in the year ahead and lots in production, so be sure to check your inboxes, and follow us on our socials – find us @DiscworldEmporium on Facebook, Insta, and Bluesky and @DiscworldShoppe on X!
